Thursday, June 9, 2016

Second Largest SEC Whistleblower Award Granted to Labaton Sucharow Client

Led by SEC whistleblower lawyer Jordan Thomas, team secures substantial monetary award for client who reported wrongdoing in high-profile case

NEW YORK (June 9, 2016) — Labaton Sucharow LLP, which established the nation’s first practice exclusively dedicated to representing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) whistleblowers, is pleased to announce that the SEC has awarded more than $17 million to a whistleblower represented by the Firm for exposing significant wrongdoing in the financial services industry.

The award represents the second largest to date from the SEC Whistleblower Program, which is now entering its sixth year. The program allows eligible whistleblowers to receive between 10 and 30 percent of the total monetary sanctions collected in a successful enforcement action.

Labaton Sucharow’s whistleblower client provided high-quality information that led to sanctions against a major player in the financial markets. In this case, as in others, the whistleblower elected to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation and blacklisting. The SEC does not disclose the specific cases where whistleblowers played a role in order to prevent indirectly revealing the identity of the whistleblower.

“My client blew the whistle when others in the financial services industry were content to remain silent and allow investors to be harmed,” said Jordan A. Thomas, SEC whistleblower attorney and Chair of Labaton Sucharow’s Whistleblower Representation Practice. “In the coming years, I predict that many of the SEC’s largest and most significant cases will be the result of courageous whistleblowers. This is just the beginning.”

Thomas also represented the first officer of a public company to receive a whistleblower award and, in a separate instance, worked on the first case in which the SEC successfully charged an employer with retaliating against a whistleblower.

Due to the unique protections and incentives offered by the SEC Whistleblower Program, eligible whistleblowers—including Labaton Sucharow’s client in this case—have the ability to report possible federal securities violations anonymously with employment protections and the opportunity to earn substantial monetary awards. To ensure that adequate funds are available to pay awards, Congress has established a replenishing Investor Protection Fund, which has a current balance in excess of $400 million.